FROM THE INDUSTRY
technologies is slow and costly, with little opportunity for co-creation. The reason for that delay is that testbeds usually work in silos, with each network built from scratch every time an innovative technology is assessed. This is a very inefficient use of resources and funding and means individuals, projects and organisations do not readily benefit from the lessons and discoveries of others. Everything happens in villages, and no-one founds the city. Applying this lesson to 6G is where JOINER comes in. JOINER (Joint Open Infrastructure for Networks Research) is a national experimentation platform created to accelerate future communications and networks research, exploitation and adoption. The platform is designed for proof- of-concept demonstration and early commercialisation. These stages empower researchers, businesses and users alike to gather experimental evidence, advance research translation, generate valuable IP, test and validate services in real-world representative conditions and develop in-demand specialist skills.
Amidst teasingly close dates of 6G being mainstream ‘around 2030’ there are already heated discussions around use cases. Typically, these reference industry 4.0, augmented reality, autonomous transportation, eHealth and of course, artificial intelligence. But if we are honest, all such discussions do is swap one nebulous, industry marketing buzzword for another. They tell us nothing about how we will get to these case studies. Learning the lessons of 5G If we really want to know what 6G is going to do for us, we need to start by looking at 5G. 5G has proven to be a step-change in capability, with a smaller footprint, more devices and lower latency than previous generations. But the greatest contribution has been in stimulating the appetite for creativity and sharing knowledge faster than we have ever done before. We have seen this in areas as diverse as delivery drones, sensors for individual healthcare, and enabling edge architectures across the UK.
However, 5G has also shown that designing, testing and developing network
DECEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.4
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